Nicosia, Apr 23 : Kuwait Petroleum International (KPI) has signed an agreement to take a stake in a six billion dollar joint venture to build a new refinery in Vietnam, capable of refining 200,000 barrels a day.

The refinery will process only Kuwaiti crude oil.

KPI, which is the foreign investment arm of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC), will hold a 35.1 per cent stake in the Nghi Son refinery project, which is expect to start operations in 2013.

Idemitsu Kosan of Japan will hold another 35.1 per cent stake, while PetroVietnam will get 25.1 per cent and Japanese Mitsui Chemicals 4.7 per cent.

Nghi Son will be Vietnam's second refinery. The country, which relies almost entirely on imports for oil products as it lacks refining capacity, plans to complete its first refinery, the Dung Quat refinery, by next year. The Dung Quat will be able to process 130,000 barrels per day.

Kuwait is aiming to secure a long-term market for its oil in Asia through similar refining deals. It is also in talks for plants in India and China.

State oil company KPC agreed years ago to build a five billion dollar 300,000 to 350,000 bpd refinery with China's Sinopec Corp in southern Guangdong province, but the investment has yet to receive final approval from Beijing. (ANI)